UK coronavirus death toll jumps by 412 as official figures nearly doubles hospital fatalities

Katy Clifton27 May 2020

The number of people who have died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus has jumped by 412, nearly double the number of hospital fatalities announced today .

The Department for Health said 37,460 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus as of 5pm on Tuesday, up from 37,048 the day before.

The official toll of 412 was nearly double the number of hospital deaths announced on Wednesday. Individual NHS boards across the UK had announced 209 deaths in hospitals.

In the 24-hour period up to 9am on Wednesday, 117,013 tests were carried out or dispatched with 2,013 positive results.

The figure for the number of people tested in the same period was unavailable for the fifth day in a row because of “technical difficulties”.

Overall a total of 3,798,490 tests have been carried out and 267,240 cases have been confirmed positive.

Earlier today, NHS England announced 183 new deaths of hospital patients who tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 26,049.

Of the 183 new deaths announced on Wednesday, 24 occurred on May 26, 64 on May 25, and 28 on May 24.

The figures also show 55 of the new deaths took place between May 15 and May 23, nine took place in April and the remaining three occurred in March with the earliest on March 21.

In Wales, a further 11 people have died after testing positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of deaths to 1,293, Public Health Wales said.

Another 97 people have also tested positive, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 13,653.

In Scotland, a total of 2,304 patients have died, up by 13 from 2,291 on Tuesday, Nicola Sturgeon said.

Speaking at First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, she announced 15,240 people have tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up by 55 from 15,185 previous day.

The number of people who have died after in Northern Ireland has risen to 516 after two more deaths were reported by the Department of Health.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in